Alphabet Soup: AFTB sponsored by ACS

Well, I have some things to catch you up on! Where to begin...

This weekend Brian and I decided to enjoy being here for an entire weekend together-hooray! That's the first time it's happened since we've moved here, ironically. We had dinner downtown in Columbus Friday night at (of course) a Mexican restaurant! Not as good as Casa Blanca, but we'll take it. And if you come visit (as you should), I'm taking you downtown-it is darling! Big, wide, Southern streets to walk on with lots of "window-shopping". They've done a lot of renovation work and it looks great down there. Lots of fun girly-lunch places that I could never drag Brian into simply because he'd still be hungry after we left...ha!

Saturday we slept in...ah, bliss. I blame it on the fact that my dear ole husband spent a few nights in the field and has been going strong all week. So I join him in relishing some extra sleep hours. Not like I really need them, but it is a nice feeling not having a school project/paper hanging over your head! Saturday afternoon we went to Andersonville, which is home to one of the Civil War's most deadly POW camps. It's also the site of America's national POW museum and memorial....kind of depressing, but very interesting! Pictures to come.

Sunday we tried out First Presbyterian Church in none other than downtown Columbus. It was awesome! Almost cried when I walked it because it resembles FPC-Starkville; tall stained glass windows, ornate crown molding, the pews are set up the same, but this one has a lot of woodwork. Even the church body resembled Starkville--old and young people, and quite a few kiddos! We were approached by at least five people after the service which was so refreshing; it's hard to get motivated to go and search for a church when you don't feel like you're at home; we think this might work out for us! And of the approximately 15 people we know on Ft. Benning, 2 of them were there! They had joined the church a month or so ago and they were telling us how much they enjoyed it-praise God from whom all blessings flow! The woman sitting next to me was so incredibly friendly and kind--made me giddy! I wanted to start talking about 1,000 miles a minute but I made myself hold back for fear that I might scare my new friend away...Needless to say, we're going to keep going back! Afterwards we walked downtown and had lunch at this GREAT old cafe-another one I'm taking you to when you come! A very charming place.

Monday kicked off with both Brian and I headed out the door at 8; he for formation, me for AFTB class! Let me translate: Army Family Team Building. I basically spent about 8 hours listening to different 'teachers' talk about different, basic functions of the Army and services the Army offers to families and spouses. If you want it, the Army has training/a seminar for it! We got information on schools, financial planning, Army etiquette, memorizing rank, tons of services the Army provides, and on and on! We also got a huge binder, so I'll show it off to you later ;) There are two more levels to the AFTB classes, and I'm planning on taking those too, with hopes of being an AFTB instructor at some point! In addition to all of our lessons we got one on ACRONYMS...the Army has a long love affair with these puppies. Some of my old friends and I decided it would be quite fun to make a drinking game out of them...get it wrong, you know what to do...we never played for fear that we'd be at an unhealthy level in about 5 minutes... I'm pretty sure I could now have an entire conversation in acronym-language. For example:

Hey Molly, do the guys have an FTX this weekend? Their CO emailed us the OPORD ; they have to bring their TA-50 along with their ACUs for a GI tomorrow morning. We have an FRG meeting at the ACS building Wednesday where we're going to discuss some of the MWR events as well as MFLC.

Roger.

Translation: (Thank goodness I'm schooled in deciphering foreign languages...)
Hey Molly, do the guys have a field training exercise...commanding officer...op order (operation)...TA-50: all of their government issued camo junk that's residing in my living room...Army Combat Uniforms...General Inspection...Family Readiness Group...Army Community Services...Morale, Welfare, Recreation...Military Family Life Consultants...

And that's just a sprinkling of them!

In other news I've been applying for jobs all day, so keeping my fingers crossed on those! Brian is in the field tonight through Thursday, so we have some fun girl stuff planned-whoo hoo! He's learning how to hurt people. By hurt I mean make them dead...Yes you heard me. Pretend like I whispered that. But he's excited. It means he gets to shoot guns-of course he's excited. And this morning they did combatives for PT (ha, another one...), so I think I'm off to mend a pair of ACUs (hey, you now know what that stands for!) that he tore this morning. They're too dang expensive to buy new ones just yet! This pair IS new...

I also finished "The Help"-definitely read it in about 3 days-it's really good! Sad portrait of how unequal life was in the time of segregation/desegration movement, but it also gives hope. One of the girls who the book follows is a Chi Omega (fictionally) but she mentions some of the Chi O rules--pretty funny. I think I'm going to lay off of leisure reading for awhile and instead pick up my "Army Wife Handbook" that looks like a FM (field manual :) It's green. And thick. And reads pretty dry, but I feel like I need to know all of the rules so I don't get myself or Brian in trouble!

Well this has gone on long enough. Probably won't hear from me again until after this weekend--I'm trekking back to Mississippi for Anna Crain and John Clemmer's wedding. I'm so excited-both for them getting married as well as the fact that I'm going to get to see some of my amazing friends and family!